Northwestern ranked Illinois' top hospital, according to U.S. News

Nine of Illinois' top 10 hospitals, according to U.S. News & World Report, are in the Chicago area. Not pictured: OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, which placed in a three-way tie for fifth-best in the state.

Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital is on a winning streak, ranking No. 1 in the state for the sixth year in a row, according to U.S. News & World Report rankings released Tuesday, though it slipped a few spots nationally this year.

U.S. News ranks hospitals on a number of measures, including patient survival and readmission rates, patient experience, and patient safety, among other categories.

In a statement, Dean M. Harrison, president and CEO of Northwestern Memorial HealthCare, attributed his system's success in the rankings to a mission that includes putting patients first and a "culture of excellence."

These are the best hospitals in the United States, according to the 2017-2018 rankings by U.S. News & World Report.

(Sean Welsh)

Northwestern was also the only Illinois hospital to rank among the top 20 in the country, though this year it ranked 13th, down from eighth last year.

Northwestern ranked among the top 10 nationally in four specialties: cardiology and heart surgery, geriatrics, neurology and neurosurgery, and orthopedics.

University of Chicago Medical Center fell to eighth place in the state from third place the year before.

U. of C. Medicine said in a statement that new metrics used by U.S. News this year "set up an unfair comparison with previous years' results."

"While we are proud of the programs that have been recognized, we are disappointed with the overall rankings of the Medical Center," U. of C. Medicine said. "These do not accurately reflect the exceptional specialty care all our clinicians and front-line staff provide to our patients and their families."

The health system said its work is better reflected in the A grades in patient safety it's received from The Leapfrog Group.

Rankings often differ depending on who's performing them. Each year, a number of different organizations rank hospitals, all using different methodologies.

For example, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in its most recent ratings, rated Rush University Medical Center more highly than Northwestern Memorial Hospital, awarding Rush four stars and Northwestern three.

Though consumer advocates say hospital rankings can be helpful for patients, many criticize rankings for not painting a full picture of hospitals' successes and challenges.

The organization adjusted its methodology this year, including more years of data and trying to penalize hospitals less for treating low-income patients and accepting high-risk patients transferred from other hospitals. U.S. News produced the ratings with research organization RTI International.